Science Daily – Staff Writer
“If you could save the lives of five people by pushing another bystander in front of a train to his death, would you do it? And should it make any difference if that choice is presented in a language you speak, but isn’t your native tongue? Psychologists know communicating in a foreign language matters. In a new study, they take a major step toward understanding why.”(more)
The U.S. News and World Report – Meghan Groome
“For more than two decades there has been a hefty investment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in the United States. There is no question that this investment has, at the very least, brought the positives derived from better STEM education practices into the national conversation.”(more)
The 74 Million – Tim Newcomb
“As America prepares for the moon’s shadow to darken the sun’s path across the United States on Monday, Aug. 21, school districts from Idaho to Colorado to the Southeastern states are buying protective glasses so students can witness the nation’s first coast-to-coast solar eclipse in 99 years with their own eyes.”(more)
Ed Source – Ashley Hopkinson
“Transitional kindergarten is an option for younger children, who are not old enough for kindergarten, to gain social and academic experience. The program, like kindergarten, isn’t mandatory but children must have their 5th birthday by a certain month to even qualify.”(more)
KQED News Mind/Shift – Beth Holland
“As digital devices become more common in classrooms, teachers and students are discovering that what worked in the analog world may not be as effective in the digital one. Nowhere is this more clear than with note taking, a long-standing and important practice in most classrooms. For this reason, few empirical studies may be more detrimental to encouraging the use of technology in education than Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) “The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard” as well as Carter, Greenberg and Walker’s (2016) “Effect of Computer Usage on Academic Performance.”(more)
USA Today – Jefferson Graham
“Not everyone will be lucky enough to get a front row seat to view the total solar eclipse. If you’re not one of the masses headed to Oregon, Idaho, Kentucky, South Carolina or any of the other areas within the “path of totality,” there’s always TV, online and apps. The USA TODAY network will showcase the eclipse live from several locations on the path of totality, beginning in Newport, Ore. on Monday at 9 a.m. ET. USA TODAY will also livestream from locations across the entire path of totality from Oregon to South Carolina on Instagram.”(more)
Medical X-Press – Scott Canon
“Things that make life easier also change it. When you see somebody arguing on Reddit until 3 a.m. about the logic of Game of Thrones, that technology comes with a downside. Now we have the smartphone, an addictive device that makes junkies out of almost anybody who can afford one. The older we are, the more prone we are to trot out the kids-these-days worries about faces buried in screens. Yet something very real – and in ways unsettling – comes with all the iPhones and Androids. In an Atlantic article last week adapted from an upcoming book, psychologist Jean M. Twenge argues that growing up with smartphones and social media coincides with “abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states.” What she calls “iGen” – those born between 1995 and 2012 and raised with screens in their pockets – looks worse off than the generations that came before. She paints, at times with a particularly broad brush, a picture of lonely teenagers curled up in their beds obsessed with social media feeds that keep them awake at night and foster a sense of hopelessness. Yes, they’re less likely to drink, to get in car accidents and to have sex at an early age. But it’s because they just don’t get out much. They leave the house without their parents far less than kids who preceded them by just a few years.”(more)
The 74 Million – Laura Fay
“Nearly 2 in 3 high school students have seen or heard of classmates using technology to cheat in school, according to a recent survey of American teens. But only 29 percent of students surveyed by the cybersecurity company McAfee admitted cheating using an online device — suggesting that some may not have been honest about their own technology use, said McAfee’s Gary Davis. “I suspect that if somebody saw someone using a device, that may compel them to actually do something similar, so I’m not sure if in some of these responses [students] were totally transparent with their response,” he told The 74. Students can cheat by taking pictures of notes or test answers and peeking at their smartphones during exams, The Denver Post reported.”(more)
Ed Surge – Chrissy Romano-Arrabito
“At the end of June a group of passionate, dedicated educators gathered for one of New Jersey’s last EdCamps of the 2017 school year. I bounced around a few sessions but settled into one called “Flexible Furniture.” The idea is that, instead of assigning students in traditional rows of desks, they would have a choice as to where they sit. The conversation was underway when I walked in. The facilitator shared pictures of sleek, stylish yet functional seats, tables and “Starbucks”-style setups while others asked questions and shared ideas about how to get the latest furniture in their classrooms. Some offered contact information about “classroom designers” and school vendors. All which came with a hefty price tag.”(more)
Education World – Joel Stice
“As of 2015, there are 41 million native-Spanish speakers or roughly 13 percent of the population in the United States. To put that in perspective, there are more people, including second-language speakers, in the United States who speak Spanish than in Spain. Spanish is the second-most natively spoken language in the world, with around 400 million. Mandarin Chinese takes the top spot at nearly a billion native speakers, while English comes in third place. With business being more global now than any other point in human history, the need for more bilingual education is on the minds of many education experts.”(more)
